First time composing with musescore, any tips?

• Sep 1, 2023 - 11:15

So this is my first time writing a piece of music and I'm not sure what I'm doing, I have some knowledge of music theory but any tips would be really appreciated.
Here's what I've got so far.

Attachment Size
Endless_valley.mscz 35.63 KB

Comments

In the attached file I changed the notation but not any sounding notes:
- Some ties are not necessary, you can write dotted notes instead. However, there are unclear cases like measure 20 because your piece keeps wandering between 3/4 and 6/8 time.
- Measures 12 and 13 should be a♭ instead of g♯ because that’s the more correct way to notate the neighbouring note to g in a c minor context.
- Measures 21 to 26 should use 8va (but not 15ma) for better readability.
- Measure 34: A tie across a rest is very unusual, I wouldn’t know how to play it in this case.

Some comments about the music itself:
- It’s nice that the theme from the beginning reappears at measure 28. Maybe you could have even a little bit more similarity there.
- The very high melody in mm. 21 to 26 is a nice contrast before the first theme reappears.
- Measure 7 is very dissonant: you have a, b, c, d, e and g sounding at the same time (because of pedal). Measure 32 is better IMO. Some dissonances are nice (like f. e. in measure 8) but m. 7 doesn’t seem to fit in.
- I don’t “understand” what is going on in m. 33, it seems not to fit. Some ideas what might be “wrong” here:
1. The f♯ in the right hand doesn’t work well with the f in the left hand.
2. The bass line b–b♭ “wants” to go further down to a like you did it in m. 7/8.
3. The second chord in the right hand is very large and not easy to play.

Here is an attempt for an alternative version of m. 33 that tries to address all of the three points without changing too much:
Bildschirmfoto vom 2023-09-01 15-11-33.png

Attachment Size
Endless_valley.mscz 35.93 KB

In reply to by Malte_M

Thanks so much this was extremely helpful :) I will play around with it some more to resolve these issues, also the tie over the rest in bar 34 was an oversight on my part the rest was put there automatically and I didn't think to fix it before putting in the rest.

In reply to by AdamRoche

So I made some changes. Feel free to hate them. There's nothing wrong with your piece. My changes are meant to help bring out what I like about it. I added some notes in the left hand where there aren't any. This is to help with continuity. I brought the high part down an octave so that I could better hear what the melody does in measure 25 and 26. Which I really like. I also really like measure 31 when the melody goes to F#. I changed some notes in 33 to help bring that out.
For me, the change in measure 10 comes out of nowhere. But that's just me. For me, listening to and writing music is a basic level experience. The music has to reach inside me. Rip my guts out. Throw them on the ground. Jump up and down on them and thrust them back inside me. So that I know something has happened. I can be fast or slow. Loud or soft. But it can't just sit there.
Keep up the good work

Attachment Size
Endless_valley11.mscz 35.84 KB

In reply to by bobjp

Off topic, but point of forum protocol...
Thanks for the re-name of your attachment to differentiate it from others - especially with back-and-forth postings of score revisions.
(Earlier I opened "Endless_valley.mscz" and could not find the "alternative version of m.33" of which Malte_M speaks. I had to double check I was looking at the correct file.)

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